时间：2022-06-10 08:25:37
作者简介：王英伟，女，（1977.9-），辽宁葫芦岛人，硕士，北京联合大学讲师，研究方向：英语语言文学。
The story goes as follows:
“Three people were walking along a street,first a big man,then a pretty woman,and then an old gentleman.The first two went round a corner.Suddenly the gentleman saw a piece of paper on the ground.He picked it up.It was five pounds.A few seconds later,the young woman came back.She was crying:“I have dropped five pounds”,she said.
‘ “Don’t cry,” said the gentleman.“Here it is.” The young woman thanked him and went away.After a few seconds,the big man came back.He was looking for something.Suddenly a window opened and a small man looked out.“I saw five pounds fall from your pocket,” he said.“But that man gave it to a young woman.” The big man was very angry.The gentleman was frightened and gave him another five pounds.When he had gone,the young woman came back to get her one pound and sixty-seven pence,and the small man came out to get his.”
The use of theme - rheme structure makes the story consistent and natural in progression and works well in achieving its effect.
“Three people were walking along a street,first a big man,then a pretty woman,and then an old gentleman.The first two went round a corner.Suddenly the gentleman saw a piece of paper on the ground.” This part is a paralleling theme-rheme progression.The theme in the first sentence “three people” is the starting point.And the themes of the following two sentences -“the first two” and “the gentleman”- are part of the first theme.They develop their own rhemes respectively.This progression can be showed as follows:
“Suddenly the gentleman saw a piece of paper on the ground.He picked it up.It was five pounds.” The first two sentences go in the model of parallel.Two pronouns “he” and “it” here take the place of “the gentleman” and “a piece of paper” so as to avoid repetition.Then the third sentence takes up the rheme of the previous sentence as its theme,and develops its own rheme.The three sentences go as below:
“A few seconds later,the young woman came back.She was crying:“I have dropped five pounds”,she said”.Here the theme of the second sentence is the rheme of the first one.Only that it uses the pronoun “she” to replace “ the young woman”.
“Don’t cry,” said the gentleman.“Here it is.” These two sentences are both marked sentences.
“Don＇t cry,” said the gentleman.“Here it is.”
theme/objecttheme/adverbial modifier
These forms are used in order to emphasize the information carried by the themes.
“The young woman thanked him and went away.” The theme” the young women” is old information and “him” here refers to “the gentleman”.
“After a few seconds,the big man came back.He was looking for something.” The rheme of the first sentence becomes the theme of the second sentence,which develops its own rheme.It is a kind of continuous pattern.
Suddenly a window opened and a small man looked out.
themerheme
Theme in this sentence is “suddenly”.The adverb is put in the position of theme in order to emphasize the abruptness of a new event.The rheme of the sentence is a complete compound sentence,which also has its own them-rheme structure.
a window opened and a small man looked out.
themerhemethemerheme
“A window” and “a small man” here are both new information.
In “ ‘I saw five pounds fall from your pocket,’ he said.”,‘I saw five pounds fall from your pocket,’ is the theme,and “he said” is the rheme.However in the theme,there is also a sub theme-rheme structure.
“But that man gave it to a young woman.” In this sentence,“but “ and “that man” make a multiple theme.“That man” refers to the old gentleman previously mentioned.
“The big man was very angry.The gentleman was frightened and gave him another five pounds.” The rheme of the second sentence is the partially the theme of first sentence.They belong to the cross pattern.
“When he had gone,the young woman came back to get her one pound
themerheme
sixty-seven pence and the small man get his.”
In this complex sentence,there is more than one layer of theme-rheme structure.“When he had gone”,the adverbial clause is the theme,and the rheme contains its own theme-rheme structure.It is the pattern of convergence.
In this story,four people are involved.It is a pure trick.Three people,i.e.the big man,the pretty woman and the small man,work together to cheat the old gentleman.The story focuses on the relation between a five-pound note and four people.Through theme-rheme progression,the four people are crossly related to each other.The themerheme progression develops gradually,drawing the story to a natural end.（作者单位：北京联合大学）
Works Consulted
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［2］Halliday,M.A.K.& Hasan R.Cohesion in English.London:Longman,1976.
［3］Hatim,B.& I,Mason.Discourse and the Translator.Shanghai:Shanghai Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press,2001.
［4］Huang,Guowen.Essentials of Text Analysis.Changsha:Hunan Education Press,1998.